POLICING IS ROCKET SCIENCE

Professor Lawrence Sherman, the Wolfson Professor of Criminology at Cambridge University's Institute of Criminology no less, says that having bobbies stand in the same place for 12.5 minutes will crack street crime.

He's staging a year-long experiment in Madchester to prove it.

He says: 'We are trying to treat policing like rocket science, because that's exactly what it is. This is dealing with crime on an incredibly microscopic level.For the first time we are saying go to this street corner and stay there for 12 and a half minutes. It has never been obvious that policing needs to be that local.'

Never?

There's been a terrible mistake, Dixon. Abandon those case files and get yourself down to stand outside the Red Lion.

Having cops on the streets is better than having them inside the nick filling in forms, but does the Prof really think that the standard modern British moron will worry too much about this?

Coppersblog prediction: They'll either move two streets down or just take their chances, on the basis that absolutely sweet f*** all will happen to them if they are nicked anyway, but that the Cambridge Experiment will be written us as an enormous triumph all the same.

Interestingly, the yob who threw bleach into the face of the mother, in front of her family, after she asked him to be quiet in the cinema (repeat that sentence slowly to yourself) received a 12 month detention and training order (he'll do six months inside, playing Grand Theft Auto, posting pictures of himself grinning on facebook and learning lots of exotic new tricks).

This despite this being an appalling and potentially very serious offence AND the fact that he had numerous previous convictions including smashing someone over the head with half a brick.

Forget policing time and motion studies: just lock up serious, nasty recidivists for proper sentences.

Anyhoo, on a lighter note: